Tom Brady doesn’t owe us jack

O P I N I O N

It was Opening Day at Fenway Park in 2015, and the paper for whom I was writing a Red Sox column at the time got me a ticket. If you’ve never been to an Opening Day at Fenway Park, it’s an electric event—there’s a buzz of anticipation throughout the crowd, a sense of hope and summer and warm days ahead.

I was sitting in the grandstands on the third-base line, my view slightly obstructed by a giant green, iron pole that dissected leftfield and the infield in my line of view. The Opening Day ceremonies had commenced, and I contemplated braving the beer line[1] before the game began.

A few weeks before The Patriots beat the Seattle Seahawks 28-24 in one of the most exciting Superbowl games in recent history[2], and suddenly the Jumbotron in centerfield flashed the Pats’ logo then a camera zoomed in on the garage door at the bottom of The Green Monster.

Appearing like a prince in a fairy tale, Tom Brady came out of the garage door wearing shades and a T-shirt, the Vince Lombardi trophy hoisted above his head[3].

My response was reflexive. I jumped from my seat and squeed like a teenage girl.

In retrospect, I’m not quite sure why I made that squeeing noise. I suppose like many red-blooded New Englanders, I had placed Tom Brady on a sports’ fan pedestal, his apotheosis completed after that fifth Superbowl victory.

Brady was a regional demigod, kind and appreciative and handsome and talented—adjectives fainting each time he flashed that “aw-shucks” smile.

Then he went to Tampa, and suddenly he wasn’t.

In case you have been hanging out on the Dutton Ranch[4] without internet service for the past week, on Tuesday, Tom Brady announced his retirement in a lengthy Instagram[5] post where he thanked everyone under the sun.

Everyone except The Patriots, the Krafts, Bill Belichick[6] and us, the New England fans who cheered him on for two decades.

Many fans took umbrage to being dissed by our former King, which is understandable on an emotional level, but completely ludicrous on another logical one.

Sports fandom has tribal roots, and for some of the same reasons that our ancestors rooted on their warriors going into battle[7], we develop attachments to our players, and many people—particularly those of the female persuasion—grew very attached to Tom Brady.

So when he neglected to thank New England fans in his post, it felt like a frivolous slight. Brady’s situation with the Patriots is surely complicated, but it’s hard to believe the omission wasn’t deliberate and a metaphorical middle finger to the region.

But Tom Brady doesn’t owe us anything.

Nothing. Nada. Zip.

For 20 years, we had the pleasure of watching the greatest quarterback of all-time play the game. He helped to procure six Super Bowl rings here, and during the Brady-era from 2000-2018, New England sports fans enjoyed halcyon days unknowable to any other regional fans in recent history.

Brady has no obligation to show gratitude to anyone other than those people he chooses to show gratitude to. Of course, it would have been nice, and it would’ve been an advantageous PR move for the TB-12 brand.

But he didn’t, and sports talk radio can make as many conjectures as they’d like[8] as to Brady’s true intentions, but it doesn’t really matter.

Will he sign a contract to retire a Patriot? Don’t hold your breath.

The Tom Brady-era has come to an end, the spell is broken, and Tom turns back from a prince into just another man[9].

And, hopefully, I will never squee again.

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[1] I will refrain from delivering my standard diatribe on beer prices at sporting events, while fully acknowledging that I willfully pay them anyway.

[2] This was the game where Malcolm Butler picked off a Russell Wilson pass at the goal line, securing for Pete Carroll sole possession of the stupidest play-call in NFL history.

[3] Bill Belichick as well as Robert and Jonathan Kraft were with Tom, but who cares?

[4] Fine. I binged “Yellowstone” last week. I’m not ashamed. In fact, I’m pretty much a cowboy now.

[5] This is after a story broke over the weekend about his retirement, which the Brady Camp initially denied.

[6] No surprise there.

[7] Of course, their survival depended largely on their warriors’ success in battle. For the modern sports fan, a home team loss could result in being severely bummed out at work for a week.

[8] And they have.

[9] Albeit, a very rich and handsome man with a supermodel wife and seven Superbowl rings.